Weather Forecast

New Richmond boys tennis sweeps wins in home quad meet

New Richmond senior Nick Bradish continues to be one of the top players in the area. He won all three of his matches in the New Richmond quad tournament on Saturday. 1 / 2

New Richmond's Stuart Pearson returns a volley during a four singles match during the quad meet last Saturday.2 / 2

The annual New Richmond quad tournament feels as much like a family picnic as a tennis tournament. With grills cooking brats and hotdogs for the players and their families and time available for the players from different teams to mingle, this is a less pressurized break from the hectic spring sports season.

There still was plenty of tennis played and the New Richmond boys performed well. The Tigers won all three of their matches, defeating Altoona, Amery and Baldwin-Woodville.

Nick Bradish was the only Tiger to play in the same lineup slot the whole tournament and he won all three of his matches at one singles. Jack Hop, Mitch Giannini, Russ Hop and Stuart Pearson all were winners in each of their three matches.

Tiger coach Mike Montello liked the fire his team showed, especially in the 4-3 win over a quality Altoona team.

“The Altoona match was definitely the most competitive and could have been a loss except for the hard work of my team,” he said.

The Tigers defeated Amery and Baldwin-Woodville by 6-1 scores.

B-W makeup

The Tigers played the Blackhawks again on Monday, finishing off a match that was started last Thursday. Rain stopped the match then, but the Tigers finished off the 6-1 win on the B-W courts on Monday.

The Tigers swept the singles matches, with their only loss coming at one singles. Bradish received a forfeit at one singles when his opponent from Thursday had a prior engagement and couldn’t play on Monday.

Short-handed Durand

A terribly young, short-handed and inexperienced Durand team came to the New Richmond courts last Tuesday and it offered no competition for the Tigers. New Richmond won 60 of the 61 games that were played in recording a 7-0 win. Durand had only seven players, so the Panthers forfeited the four singles and three doubles matches.

Because of the lack of experience in the Durand lineup, Montello asked Bradish to sit out this match and let the rest of the singles lineup slide up a rung. The Tigers were still able to sweep all three matches, 6-0, 6-0.

First loss

The Tigers suffered their first MBC loss on May 5 when they went to Altoona and couldn’t stop the Railroaders. The Tigers lost the match 5-2. New Richmond won the first two singles matches handily and Altoona did the same in all three doubles matches.

The pivotal matches took place at three and four singles. Both Casey Turnipseed at three singles and Pearson at four singles won their first set, before their Altoona opponent charged back to take the final two sets.

“Overall we were flat. The long time between matches didn’t help, and we didn’t play with any type of edge,” Montello said in assessing the loss.

The season is winding down for the Tigers, but it will be a busy final stretch of the season. The Tigers are scheduled to play at home this Thursday in a non-conference match against Menomonie. The Tigers face more non-conference opposition this Saturday when they play in a tournament in Tomah.

The Tigers will be in action next Monday, trying to complete a match at Baldwin-Woodville that was started last Thursday, before rain swept in to shut down the match.

The Middle Border Conference boys tennis tournament is scheduled to be played next Tuesday, beginning at 9 a.m. The tournament was originally scheduled to be played in Osceola, but last week the tournament was relocated to Baldwin-Woodville.

Dave Newman has been the sports editor at the New Richmond News since 1988. He has covered the action in the Middle Border Conference, Dunn-St. Croix Conference and Big Rivers Conference for nearly 30 years.